


Old World Dawn

by yotsu8a



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fear of Death, M/M, Subtext, True Love, blah blah sentimental as always, idk what to tag this as lol, lots of references to discussions that only happen in the manga, really just lots of references to minor aspects of their canonical relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 17:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17390207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yotsu8a/pseuds/yotsu8a
Summary: The world is rushing towards a new age. Aizawa spills his coffee.





	Old World Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually adapted from a scene i wrote as an assignment for a playwrighting class i've been taking this year. i don't think it's my best work but i've been sitting on it for like, over two months, so lmao
> 
> no content warnings apply except for some discussion of death, but this is based on a series called death note so if you're not okay w that then i honestly don't know what to tell you at this point. here's to my first fic of the new year!

The Kira investigation, Ide had come to discover, stopped for no man. Really, the discovery hadn’t been one made on _his_ part — he was work-driven as it stood, already hyperaware of his job’s overwhelming importance — but the passage of time itself apparently hadn’t reached the same conclusion. There was not enough time in the day to accomplish all they needed to accomplish; each day, at the same time, stretched onwards into infinity, marching into a vast, unseen darkness. The case had been torrential, once. Ide might have enjoyed it if it weren’t so despondent. Recently, however — progress seemed to come to a standstill, and _yet_ the feeling remained. He could not decide if there was not enough time left or far, far too much.

The sun marched along outside the window on its journey through the sky, no matter how its recipients felt. The very first presages of dawn spilled into the Yagami-Amane apartment. Matsuda had told him (privately, out of Light’s earshot) that the old headquarters had been far more impressive; Ide didn’t particularly care about _impressive_ , but this setting was certainly more _intimate_ than he cared for. Monitors and other equipment took up enough of the room as it was and what was left was smaller than comfortable for a team of detectives; the coffee table, too, was cluttered with laptops and more equipment and some food Matsuda had forgotten about late into the previous night.

It was painfully early to be waking up. Ide had been very prudent, he had decided, to buy himself a sleeping mask — the outside world was still far too dark for the new day to rouse him. What woke Ide was an expletive from the man seated across from him.

“Ow! Shit!”

He immediately jolted awake; with anyone else it might have taken him a pause to figure out who had spoken, but with Aizawa he realized straightaway. “Huh? What? What’s going on?” He fumbled with his sleeping mask, fingers slipping around clumsily before he managed to peel the thing from his face. Ide shoved himself upright, blinking into the relative darkness before managing to focus on his companion. “What’s wrong?”

“Coffee spill. Christ…” Aizawa muttered, standing. He briefly examined his chair’s cushion before reaching for a roll of paper towels that had been left, at some point, on the table. Voice soft, he added, “Sorry to wake you.”

“It’s fine.” Matching his volume, Ide pulled his mouth into something halfway between a grimace and a smile. “I’m used to it.”

Aizawa tore off a generous few sheets of paper towels. “I didn’t think I was that bad.”

“You’re not,” Ide stated drily, discarding the mask onto the arm of the couch. “It’s Matsuda. Always yelling…”

Aizawa began to wipe himself down. “Of course. That’s just how he is. And you weren’t even here before Ryuzaki died… Actually, I think he’s gotten _worse_.”

“Or you’ve gotten less tolerant,” he suggested, tone distinctly non-accusatory. 

“Not less tolerant, just more exhausted,” Aizawa replied with a tired laugh.

“That’s more than fair.” Ide allowed his words to remain in the air for a moment, emptily, inoffensively. Eyes finally fully adjusted to the dim glow of the living room, he peered through the empty space into Aizawa, and, after some hesitation, added, “Are you alright?”

“I just spilled coffee all over myself, Ide. I think I have some spare pants around here somewhere…” Aizawa dropped the bundle of stained paper towels into a trash can someone had placed next to the table, grimacing and glancing around the room. “Damn, I’d really rather not go home for this.”

“Hold on for a second, Aizawa, that’s not what I meant. I mean…” Ide frowned. “You seem tired. Nervous. Unwell. You’ve been that way a lot lately. Have you been doing alright?”

“As alright as I can be,” Aizawa replied snappishly, before the question had time to fester.

Ide raised his eyebrows, but showed no signs of upset — in fact, he _wasn’t_ upset, aside from concern for his friend. He had known Aizawa for decades, had _been his friend_ for decades — close friends, too, close in ways that plenty of people wouldn’t understand. Ide had seen Aizawa upset time and time again, had been snapped at before, briefly — quite well enough to know not be _upset_. His friend’s anger came and left quickly and made itself known at the first possible opportunity regardless of its target, but it always flickered out harmlessly. Aizawa _used_ to be annoyed by small things; he still was, in truth, but he had begun to exhibit far more restraint. He gave off the impression that he was biting his tongue.

Besides, Ide knew their situation well enough to know that Aizawa wasn’t angry with _him_ — it wasn’t even _anger_ , truly. He had played this role before; he was comfortable as a confidant, and Ide found himself assuming its position.

There was a pause.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you,” Aizawa said finally, deflating. “You know how it’s been lately.”

For a moment, Ide did not respond; then, he motioned for the other man to take a seat next to him. After his request was obliged, he prompted, “No new developments, then?”

“Nothing,” Aizawa announced flatly. “No big moves from Kira, no suspicious actions from Light or Misa... It’s the same old story. Mogi and I are going to keep our eyes on them, but, well... What can we do? Near seems to have a good idea of what he’s doing, but he isn’t letting either of us in on very much. Hell, he kept me blindfolded when I came to talk, did you know that?”

“That’s hardly surprising, though.”

“I guess so.”

Ide paused, briefly. “And you’re still listening to him.” It might have been a question if he had been speaking to anyone else, but for Aizawa, it was a _statement_.

“He’s smart,” Aizawa begrudged finally. “A lot like Ryuzaki, except he actually has evidence for what he’s saying, and doesn’t just sulk and treat people unfairly all the time. I never said I liked him, but he’s worth listening to.”

“Well, I trust your judgement, Aizawa. I hope Near is wrong — ” Ide didn’t know the surviving Yagami very well, not as well as the other detectives on the task force did, yet the idea of one of their own being Kira was still _disturbing_  at its core — “but if this is what you think is right…”

“Yeah, I know. But we barely know Near, don’t we? And Kira has been active for years now. Ryuzaki didn’t win. And if he couldn’t win…” Aizawa bit his lip; a doubtful roughness had audibly crept its way into his throat. “Sometimes I wonder if we’ll last.”

They both fell silent. Aizawa wiped at his pants a final time in what Ide could tell was an attempt to find _something else_ to focus his attention on. He sighed heavily, lips slightly parted, and looked back to Ide.

“You know, Ide, you never did tell me why you decided to rejoin the investigation.”

Ide hesitated. Aizawa had made his way back onto the task force directly after Higuchi’s arrest, weeks before Ide himself had — because Ide had stalled, had strung out all the stubbornness he possessed and kept away until the previous L was killed (information that he wouldn’t have been privy to in the first place if Aizawa hadn’t told him, hadn’t reopened L’s old offer on the dead man’s behalf). He had announced his decision to the other man with little internal conflict, and Aizawa had accepted his resolution, no questions asked. He had always assumed, had always _hoped_ , that Aizawa already knew why — but maybe it was best that he didn’t.

_I wouldn’t have done it at all if you weren’t here._

— but there was no point to saying that. There wasn’t any time for it, any benefit to adding his personal emotions to their situation. Instead, he skirted the question. “You, too?”

“What?”

“Matsuda asked me about that the other day, too,” Ide clarified. These were the times that tried men’s souls, he supposed; if his friends were curious about his convictions, he could hardly blame them.

“And what did you say?”

“That the alternative is to let a mass murderer take over the world,” Ide half-lied.

Aizawa paused. Then, seemingly to himself, he murmured, “You’re willing to risk your life for all this?”

“Of course I am,” Ide said. “I have been since the beginning. You know that.”

Aizawa paused again, giving him a look that said _yes, I do know, and I don’t know if it’s a good thing._ “I guess so. I just ... I've been thinking. Ever since the Chief ... passed away, I've been thinking about this.” At some point, his voice had grown shaky, just barely contained in a way that Ide had heard before only momentarily. “I don’t know what I’d do if you were killed.”

If Ide’s chest was subject to much more thumping, he was certain it would tear itself open. The world was melting and everything was just as stagnant as it was full of revolutionary fervor. They were both young and very, very old. His throat hurt.

Ide rested a hand on Aizawa’s shoulder. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

Aizawa’s eyes had dropped to the floor at some point over the course of the last minute; they returned to Ide, and he offered an ironic, dry half-smile. “How could you know for sure?”

“I’m not dying unless you die first. You asked me to avenge you, after all.”

It was quiet for two seconds, three, four, and then Ide was laughing and Aizawa was laughing and neither of them were happy and morning lambency began flooding into Yagami Light’s living room.

**Author's Note:**

> this probably isn't super relevant but i headcanon that aizawa and his wife divorced over the time skip between L's death and sayu's kidnapping. you technically cannot disprove this, so i am not wrong. also shout out to my boy, old soul song (for the new world order) by bright eyes
> 
> http://sugurushimura.tumblr.com/


End file.
